Cue integration in metamemory judgements is strategic

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Undorf ◽  
Arndt Bröder

People base judgements about their own memory processes on probabilistic cues such as the characteristics of study materials and study conditions. While research has largely focused on how single cues affect metamemory judgements, a recent study by Undorf, Söllner, and Bröder found that multiple cues affected people’s predictions of their future memory performance (judgements of learning, JOLs). The present research tested whether this finding was indeed due to strategic integration of multiple cues in JOLs or, alternatively, resulted from people’s reliance on a single unified feeling of ease. In Experiments 1 and 2, we simultaneously varied concreteness and emotionality of word pairs and solicited (a) pre-study JOLs that could be based only on the manipulated cues and (b) immediate JOLs that could be based both on the manipulated cues and on a feeling of ease. The results revealed similar amounts of cue integration in pre-study JOLs and immediate JOLs, regardless of whether cues varied in two easily distinguishable levels (Experiment 1) or on a continuum (Experiment 2). This suggested that people strategically integrated multiple cues in their immediate JOLs. Experiment 3 provided further evidence for this conclusion by showing that false explicit information about cue values affected immediate JOLs over and above actual cue values. Hence, we conclude that cue integration in JOLs involves strategic processes.

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (3) ◽  
pp. 1128-1136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Trewartha ◽  
J. Randall Flanagan

Weight predictions used to scale lifting forces adapt quickly when repeatedly lifting unusually weighted objects and are readily updated by explicit information provided about weight. In contrast, weight predictions used when making perceptual judgments about weight are more resistant to change and are largely unaffected by explicit information about weight. These observations suggest that distinct memory systems underlie weight prediction when lifting objects and judging their weights. Here we examined whether these weight predictions differ in their reliance on declarative and nondeclarative memory resources by comparing the adaptability of these predictions in older adults, who exhibit relatively impaired declarative memory processes, to those in younger adults. In the size condition, we measured lift forces as participants repeatedly lifted a pair of size-weight inverted objects in alternation. To assess weight judgments, we measured the size-weight illusion every 10 lifts. The material condition was similar, except that we used material-weight inverted objects and measured the material-weight illusion. The strengths of these illusions prior to lifting, and the attenuation of the illusions that arise when lifting inverted objects, were similar for both groups. The magnitude of the change in the illusions was positively correlated with implicit memory performance in both groups, suggesting that predictions used when judging weight rely on nondeclarative memory resources. Updating of lifting forces also did not differ between groups. However, within the older group the success with which lifting forces were updated was positively correlated with working memory performance, suggesting that weight predictions used when lifting rely on declarative memory resources.


2020 ◽  
pp. 174569162095069
Author(s):  
Corentin Gonthier

Despite the abundant literature on visuospatial short-term memory, researchers have devoted little attention to strategic processes: What procedures do subjects implement to memorize visuospatial material? Evidence for various strategies exists, but it is spread across a variety of fields. This integrative review of the literature brings together scattered evidence to provide an overview of strategic processes in visuospatial memory tasks. The diversity of strategies and their proposed operating mechanisms are reviewed and discussed. The evidence leads to proposing seven broad strategic processes used in visuospatial short-term memory, each with multiple variants. Strategies can vary across individuals, but the same subjects also appear to use multiple strategies depending on the perceptual features of to-be-remembered displays. These results point to a view of visuospatial strategies as a functional library of facilitatory processes on which subjects can draw to support visuospatial short-term memory performance. Implications are discussed for the difference between visual and spatial tasks, for the appropriate measurement of strategic behaviors, and for the interpretation of performance in visuospatial memory tasks.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sophie Louise Parker

<p>Decreasing physical pain, increasing emotional wellbeing, and improving physical health are just some of the ways placebos have affected people's physiological and psychological health (Crum & Langer, 2007; Kirsch & Sapirstein, 1999; Montgomery & Kirsch, 1997). Recently, Clifasefi, Garry, Harper, Sharman, and Sutherland (2007) demonstrated that a memory placebo called R273 could even reduce people's susceptibility to misleading information. Yet how could a substance with no physiologically active properties affect memory performance? That is the overarching question of this thesis. In order to monitor the sources of information about the past, and in order to remember future tasks and actions, people can either use an effortful monitoring process, or they can rely on their usual, automatic and effortless memory processes. Typically, the more monitoring that people use, the better their memory performance (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993; Einstein et al., 2005). In this thesis, over three experiments, I examined how a placebo might affect the way people monitor information, thus improving aspects of retrospective and prospective memory. Experiment 1 examined whether R273 reduces people's susceptibility to the misinformation effect by leading them to switch from their habitual, automatic, and easy source monitoring to more deliberate and effortful source monitoring. To examine this question I used Clifasefi et al.'s (2007) sham drug procedure and then ran subjects through a three-stage misinformation experiment (Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978). The results of Experiments 1 suggest that R273 did not affect effortful monitoring during the post event information (PEI), but did affect effortful monitoring during the memory test. Experiment 2 aimed to find further evidence that R273 affects people's monitoring during the memory test. To address this question, all subjects were told that they had received an inactive drug before they took part in the first two stages of the misinformation effect paradigm. Immediately before taking the memory test, however, I falsely told some people that they had actually received R273. The primary finding of Experiment 2 added support to the idea that R273 affects subjects source monitoring during the memory test: Told Drug subjects were less misled than their Told Inactive counterparts. Finally, Experiment 3 further examined whether R273 leads people to use effortful monitoring, but did so using a prospective memory task, whose underlying memory processes align closely with those of source monitoring. The results showed that Told Drug subjects were slower to perform an ongoing and concurrent task, yet had better prospective memory performance than Told Inactive subjects. These results suggested that R273 lead Told Drug subjects' to use more effortful monitoring. In conclusion, the results suggest that the sham cognitive enhancing placebo R273 improves people's ability to resist misleading suggestion, and perform prospective memory tasks because it leads them to use more effortful monitoring.</p>


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nagireddy Neelakanteswar Reddy

According to the Cue integration theory, the Sense of agency (SoA) is a resultant of both motor as well as non-motor cues, and these multiple cues are integrated based on their reliability or invariance estimate. However, the cue integration theory fails to make a distinction between perception and judgment, when it attributes (multisensory) perceptual character to non-motor cues like affect, effort, competition, fluency, familiarity, expertise, sleep, meditation, primes, and previews of actions, etc. Thus, my paper criticizes the experimentally operationalized cue-integrated SoA by arguing that: (a) there is uncertainty in the cue-integrated SoA experimental operationalization (making the participants prone to judgment effects); (b) the cue integration theory faces a problem of explaining how non-motor cues acquire interface, intentionality, and accuracy about agency; (c) the SoA reports are influenced by heuristic responding pattern (under uncertainty); (d) the cue-integrated SoA operationalizations had ‘inaccuracy standard’ for measuring perception of agency; (e) under certainty, the (nonveridical) SoA reports might not have occurred at all. This paper concludes that the reported heuristic responses (under uncertainty) of SoA can be parsimoniously accounted by compositionality nature of thought/judgment rather than the cue-integrated perception, and thus, the cue-integrated SoA reports are not instances of perceptions but are judgments.


2020 ◽  
pp. 194855062091318
Author(s):  
Bryan M. Buechner ◽  
Joshua J. Clarkson ◽  
Ashley S. Otto ◽  
Edward R. Hirt ◽  
M. Cony Ho

Although models of political ideology traditionally focus on the motivations that separate conservatives and liberals, a growing body of research is directly exploring the cognitive factors that vary due to political ideology. Consistent with this emerging literature, the present research proposes that conservatives and liberals excel at tasks of distinct working memory processes (i.e., inhibition and updating, respectively). Consistent with this hypothesis, three studies demonstrate that conservatives are more likely to succeed at response inhibition and liberals are more likely to succeed at response updating. Moreover, this effect is rooted in different levels of cognitive flexibility and independent of respondents’ demographics, intelligence, religiosity, and motivation. Collectively, these findings offer an important perspective on the cognitive factors that delineate conservatism and liberalism, the role of cognitive flexibility in specific working memory processes, and the impact of political ideology on a multitude of behaviors linked to inhibition and updating (e.g., creativity, problem-solving, self-control).


2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 1503-1511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Homira Osman ◽  
Jessica R. Sullivan

Purpose The objectives of this study were to determine (a) whether school-age children with typical hearing demonstrate poorer auditory working memory performance in multitalker babble at degraded signal-to-noise ratios than in quiet; and (b) whether the amount of cognitive demand of the task contributed to differences in performance in noise. It was hypothesized that stressing the working memory system with the presence of noise would impede working memory processes in real time and result in poorer working memory performance in degraded conditions. Method Twenty children with typical hearing between 8 and 10 years old were tested using 4 auditory working memory tasks (Forward Digit Recall, Backward Digit Recall, Listening Recall Primary, and Listening Recall Secondary). Stimuli were from the standardized Working Memory Test Battery for Children. Each task was administered in quiet and in 4-talker babble noise at 0 dB and −5 dB signal-to-noise ratios. Results Children's auditory working memory performance was systematically decreased in the presence of multitalker babble noise compared with quiet. Differences between low-complexity and high-complexity tasks were observed, with children performing more poorly on tasks with greater storage and processing demands. There was no interaction between noise and complexity of task. All tasks were negatively impacted similarly by the addition of noise. Conclusions Auditory working memory performance was negatively impacted by the presence of multitalker babble noise. Regardless of complexity of task, noise had a similar effect on performance. These findings suggest that the addition of noise inhibits auditory working memory processes in real time for school-age children.


2020 ◽  
pp. 014544552090658
Author(s):  
Michal Icht ◽  
Nophar Ben-David ◽  
Yaniv Mama

Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) typically show weak long-term memory (LTM) skills. Understanding verbal LTM processes and searching for effective mnemonics in this population is important, to improve intervention programs. The current study aimed to assess verbal LTM abilities of adults with mild ID of mixed etiologies, and to offer a simple memorization technique based on vocal production. Participants ( n = 55) learned lists of different study materials (images of familiar and unfamiliar objects, written words, and sentences) by vocal production (saying or reading aloud) or by no-production (looking, listening, or reading silently). Memory tests followed. Better memory was found for vocally produced images of familiar objects, written words, and sentences. The results show that adults with mild ID can benefit from the relative distinctiveness of items at study. Hence, vocalization may be used in educational and therapeutic contexts for this population, improving memory performance.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sophie Louise Parker

<p>Decreasing physical pain, increasing emotional wellbeing, and improving physical health are just some of the ways placebos have affected people's physiological and psychological health (Crum & Langer, 2007; Kirsch & Sapirstein, 1999; Montgomery & Kirsch, 1997). Recently, Clifasefi, Garry, Harper, Sharman, and Sutherland (2007) demonstrated that a memory placebo called R273 could even reduce people's susceptibility to misleading information. Yet how could a substance with no physiologically active properties affect memory performance? That is the overarching question of this thesis. In order to monitor the sources of information about the past, and in order to remember future tasks and actions, people can either use an effortful monitoring process, or they can rely on their usual, automatic and effortless memory processes. Typically, the more monitoring that people use, the better their memory performance (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993; Einstein et al., 2005). In this thesis, over three experiments, I examined how a placebo might affect the way people monitor information, thus improving aspects of retrospective and prospective memory. Experiment 1 examined whether R273 reduces people's susceptibility to the misinformation effect by leading them to switch from their habitual, automatic, and easy source monitoring to more deliberate and effortful source monitoring. To examine this question I used Clifasefi et al.'s (2007) sham drug procedure and then ran subjects through a three-stage misinformation experiment (Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978). The results of Experiments 1 suggest that R273 did not affect effortful monitoring during the post event information (PEI), but did affect effortful monitoring during the memory test. Experiment 2 aimed to find further evidence that R273 affects people's monitoring during the memory test. To address this question, all subjects were told that they had received an inactive drug before they took part in the first two stages of the misinformation effect paradigm. Immediately before taking the memory test, however, I falsely told some people that they had actually received R273. The primary finding of Experiment 2 added support to the idea that R273 affects subjects source monitoring during the memory test: Told Drug subjects were less misled than their Told Inactive counterparts. Finally, Experiment 3 further examined whether R273 leads people to use effortful monitoring, but did so using a prospective memory task, whose underlying memory processes align closely with those of source monitoring. The results showed that Told Drug subjects were slower to perform an ongoing and concurrent task, yet had better prospective memory performance than Told Inactive subjects. These results suggested that R273 lead Told Drug subjects' to use more effortful monitoring. In conclusion, the results suggest that the sham cognitive enhancing placebo R273 improves people's ability to resist misleading suggestion, and perform prospective memory tasks because it leads them to use more effortful monitoring.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Murshida Khatoon ◽  
Debdulal Dutta Roy

Metamemory refers to the monitoring and control of memory processes. Theorists also include general knowledge and beliefs about memory processes under the purview of metamemory. Researchers have investigated various aspects of metamemory across various age groups and clinical groups over the last few decades. However, metamemory research among adolescent population seems to be relatively less, particularly in the past 10-15 years. The present review examines metamemory studies among the adolescent population (both general and clinical populations) in recent years. Book chapters and metamemory studies on adolescents( from 2000 to present) were reviewed. The studies included in this report were obtained from Google search and other specialized databases such as ScienceDirect and APAPsychNET with relevant keyword feeds. Review suggests that majority of metamemory studies have mostly been conducted on adults, old adults and children from both general and clinical population. The adolescent group has received little attention in recent years. Another observation is a differential pattern of correlation between metamemory and memory performance.


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